


A Tenfold Increase

by youwilllovemylaugh



Series: you caught me off guard [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chubby Kink, Eating Kink, F/M, Hand Feeding, Oreos, Weight Gain, soft and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 22:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12397347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youwilllovemylaugh/pseuds/youwilllovemylaugh
Summary: She read through their last messages, all sent long before the Jubilee, before working up the nerve to type out,I’ve been thinking…She sent it, and though she began typing, several times, a message about how she was thinking about what he’d said at Pop’s, how his appetite supposedly increased tenfold -- she sucked in a breath, thinking about the sheer magnitude of such a number when it came to food -- she deleted every single one, and instead sent,about how sweet you looked asleep this afternoon in the waiting room.He’d seen the first one -- Jughead was a firm believer in the merit of read receipts, mostly so he could be petty about responding to texts -- but it took him a minute to start replying once he’d read the first one. And then --Thinking how?





	1. Chapter 1

Betty didn’t quite know what to make of Jughead’s comment, sitting at the bar at Pop’s. _In times of crisis, sometimes people lose their appetite. Me, mine increases tenfold._ She’d stared at him, maybe for too long after he’d said it, and then she’d changed the subject -- being in Pop’s the day after Archie’s father had been murdered had already felt like overstepping, and she’d only felt worse after Jughead had accepted Pop’s offer to cook for them -- but still. His voice still rang in her ears: _Mine increases tenfold._

Food was a weird thing in the Cooper household. Her mother had always been strict about it, from portion sizes to shopping lists to how often they were allowed to order takeout. Her mother had relaxed a bit over the years, and the last several months had proven especially lax after Polly went away, but still Betty found it hard to stop herself from reciting all her mother’s platitudes in her head whenever food came into question: _greens go on every plate! proteins should be the size of a deck of cards! no snacks after eight p.m.!_ Every birthday party, sleepover, school function, what have you, those words reminded Betty of her place, of how she looked when she ate, of how other people paid attention to what she did. Perfect people weren’t allowed to slip up, and so she didn’t.

But that was one of the things that had brought her to Jughead in the first place. He knew what it was like to be watched, to wrestle with the predetermined expectations set by an unforgiving and archetypal society. He knew both how hard it was and how much it meant not to fit into those expectations.

And yet. That didn’t seem to apply to food. Or perhaps it did -- while Betty was supposed to appear like she subsisted on air and the color pink alone, maybe Jughead was supposed to be a bit more scattered, a bit less cognizant of his eating habits, than Betty was.

She’d noticed it a few times, here and there, over the last few months. While Betty had come from a world of seated and scheduled family dinners, dessert only on Fridays, meals planned and packed for lunch in advance, Jughead was more fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants. It was true about everything -- it was one of the reasons Betty found him so exciting, why she loved him so much -- but it seemed particularly acute when it came to food.

When Pop had asked them if they were hungry, Jughead had said, “Yeah, sure, I’m always hungry,” and yeah, Betty thought as she sat in the cradle seat in the waiting room at Riverdale General, Jughead sure did seem to always be hungry. He ate enough for three people at lunch sometimes. After school, when there was time to hang out between meetings for _The Blue & Gold_ and cheerleading practice, he was always the first to suggest they go to Pop’s for something -- a milkshake, a burger, some fries. The few times he’d been at Betty’s -- perhaps most notably the night her mother had invited him and his father over for dinner -- she’d watched as he ate ravenously, everything on his plate, everything that was offered to him, even, when her mother wasn’t around, some things that were not.

She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it before, in all the years she’d known Jughead. It was possible, though she felt awful and shitty for thinking it, that in the past, she’d just assumed he was starving because his parents couldn’t ever get themselves together well enough to feed their kids. That was Alice talking, probably, but it still made Betty feel like her stomach had filled with acid to think it.

He was sitting across from her now, in the waiting room, dozing despite himself. They were waiting, now that they’d gone to and come back from Pop’s without Mr. Andrews’ wallet, to see if Mr. Andrews would wake from his coma. Some other people from town were loitering for the same reason -- Josie and Valerie, a few other members of the football team -- but most everyone steered clear of her and Jughead. Whether it was out of respect for their proximity to the situation, or for the more probable reason that everyone still thought of Jughead as the town freak, Betty didn’t care. It gave her room to stare at him unencumbered.

A pitfall of the last few weeks had definitely been time. There was so little time to sit like this, to idle about. Betty had never had time to be idle in her life -- Alice had seen to that -- but something about Jughead made her wish for long, lazy afternoons and the hooded smell of bergamot candles and the feel of his skin on hers. For hours. Uninterrupted. And she wanted to look at him, to study the planes of his face, of the nose he’d grown into since middle school, the soft waves of hair that stuck out from under his hat, the curves of his brows as they twitched in his sleep. Part of her wanted to commit his face to memory like she would facts for her AP US History class; another part of her wanted never to have a reason to know his face only by her memory.

He looked soft when he slept. She hadn’t really seen him sleep yet, unless she counted the drooping-head, chin-resting kind of nodding off he’d fallen to on their late nights at _The Blue & Gold_. But she welcomed the chance now. She knew that after years of being watched, Jughead probably knew as well as she did that if you wanted any kind of freedom, you had to watch everyone else twice as much to sneak it in. And he was intimidatingly observant -- there were times Betty felt like she would never see all the things Jughead could. She liked knowing that, for once, she wasn’t being watched. That she could revel in the small details of Jughead’s face and never have to tell him.

And revel she did. His head was tilted just to the left as he slept, and if Betty could have thanked the gods, she would have, because the tilt of his head just emphasized the little bit of extra fat he had under his chin. She’d noticed him trying to hide it, keeping his head tilted back, looking at people down his nose. She’d seen her mother do it so many times in her life, and she’d thought at first that it was something like that, some sort of mirroring technique Jughead had adopted without realizing. But then she’d noticed Veronica did it too, especially when she took pictures of them together. She always raised her phone up a little higher than their eyelines, and then tilted her chin up before she smiled.

_Mother always says you want to capture your most chiseled self_ , Veronica had said once, tapping the skin beneath her own chin once, with two perfectly manicured fingers. _So chins up._

It’d all fallen in place for Betty then. Though it would be no surprise to her or anyone else if he were indeed trying to look at people down his nose, it did the job of covering up two things Jughead was self-conscious about: that wrong-side-of-town, badboy image, and that he’d maybe recently gained weight.

And she’d harbored her little secret about Jughead ever since. She’d seen him later that day, and, while she was nearly always looking at him from below, she’d seen for the first time just how careful he was to angle his face _just_ so, so that the little bit of pudge there didn’t roll forward like it did now.

She smiled to herself. If she could take a little spot of Jughead and make it only hers, that spot under his chin would be it. But she found herself scanning the rest of him, anyway, longing for more. She liked the rounded slouch of his shoulders under his shearling coat, and the set of his arms on the armrests of their horrible plastic chairs.

And then she saw the way his hands were resting, palms flat, fingers curving over what most certainly had to be … something.

She wanted to leap up, to sit next to him and inspect whatever it was she thought she was seeing. But still there were too many people around. She’d seen him just the night before without his shirt on, but she’d been so distracted, she hadn’t noticed anything. Though, she supposed, she hadn’t even known to look yesterday.

As she stared, she thought. Under all the exasperation, she’d taken so much pleasure in seeing her mother squirm and fail to confront her own discomfort every time Jughead was around. Even though she knew it wasn’t fair, to her mother or herself, she still felt an almost-wicked twinge of pleasure in seeing her mother forced to come to terms with the fact that no, not everything could be perfect. Not everything was going to be perfect for her. Nor would it be for her daughters. Betty had thought Polly had won the privilege of teaching their mom that when she got pregnant -- but it was surprisingly gratifying to learn that she hadn’t taken all that privilege for herself.

Even still, that privilege seemed a distant victory when she thought about Jughead sitting at the bar at Pop’s wolfing down a double cheeseburger and French fries. The way he’d said _Mine increases tenfold_. Who even talked like that? Why did it make her feel lightheaded and woozy and like she could giggle her way right out of her own shoes?

She kept looking at him. He looked so soft when he slept, like he bore none of the weight of the world that he usually carried with him. But there was more than just that softness there. There had been so much stress in the last month. Even though Jughead had been following the case since Jason Blossom had been murdered, it had to have gotten worse since his father became involved. And when his father got involved … he went to live with Archie.

If Betty remembered anything at all about the afternoons she spent as a child at Archie’s house, it was that there was always food in his house. His mother had very different ideas about food than her mother did -- you ate when you were hungry, and there was no such thing as an invalid reason to be hungry. And so, Archie ate like a dump truck. And if what Jughead said was true, about eating when he was stressed….

Betty had to fake a yawn to stifle her gleeful laughter.

She couldn’t sit still, not after that revelation, so she pretended like she was getting water from the cooler at the end of their row of chairs, and when she returned, she sat next to Jughead instead of across from him.

He roused almost immediately, looked around a little like he was embarrassed to have fallen asleep in public, but when Betty smiled at him, some of that worry melted away. He put his arm around her and she snuggled in closer, offering her cup of water to him. He took it and drank, and Betty tried not to watch his throat too closely as he swallowed. Enough people in this town were weird, and though she liked this image of not being totally perfect anymore, she didn’t need anyone thinking she was taking after Count Orlok.

“How long have I been asleep?” he asked her.

He still looked mired in sleep, and she was sure it was obvious how adorable she thought he looked, all heavy-lidded and drowsy. But she didn’t care -- even when Jughead’s dreamy smile turned wry.

“Not too long,” she said. She felt breathless, being this close to him, which was both silly and warranted, she supposed. Sometimes he still felt new.

He stretched beside her, and she glanced down at the hem of his shirt, which had ridden up as he reached his arms over his head. She’d looked away as quickly as she’d looked down, but if she wasn’t mistaken, he was definitely softer and rounder underneath his shirt than he might have wanted anyone to know.

He sighed, settled against her again. “I think I ate too much at Pop’s,” he admitted, and like that, klaxons went off in Betty’s head.

“Oh?” she managed.

He just shrugged. “My appetite might grow when I’m stressed, but I’m not so sure my stomach gets the message on time,” he said. And then he seemed to remember where he was, because he pulled his arm back and straightened his shirt, shrugged himself closer into his jacket.

Betty took his hand when he settled. “Makes sense,” she offered. “That’s okay,” she added, when Jughead didn’t quite look at her.

They sat quietly there for a while. It wasn’t quite the rainy afternoon Betty had been thinking of, but it was still nice to breathe in the same space, undisturbed, for a while. The hospital was like a womb, a soundproof incubator that protected them from all the wild nonsense that had been running rampant through Riverdale the last few months. And even though it was that wild nonsense that had brought Jughead to Betty, she was sure he was about the only thing that really made sense to her.

He flung his arm back around her later, and she settled into him again, winding her arm around his middle. He didn’t seem to mind. What she really wanted, in a sudden and overwhelmingly powerful way, was to grab his stomach, to feel whatever softness that had gathered at his middle in the palm of her hand. She wanted to test how well, how much, he’d rejected that idea of perfection. She wanted to see how much more of him there was for her to love now, than there had been at the start of all of this.

She wanted to do this now, but it would be rude to leave so abruptly when the rest of her next-door neighbor and best friend’s father’s life was still uncertain. Archie had disappeared beyond the hospital doors sometime ago, and hadn’t been seen since. He’d been eager to get back there, to see if he could wake his father, but so far nothing had happened. And neither Betty nor Jughead, she was sure, would leave now, in case nothing did.

So she sat. Answered a few emails for The Blue and Gold on her phone, head resting on Jughead’s shoulder. Kevin swung over, and the three of them talked for a while, Kevin shooting her a look every few seconds, as if to say, _I can’t believe Jughead really said_ I love you. In some ways, she couldn’t quite believe it either.

And then Archie came bursting out of the double doors to the hospital rooms and said his father had woken up, and just like that, the incubator bubble had burst. Jughead had offered her a ride home, and she’d declined in spite of every modicum of glee she took in imagining her mother’s face when she and Jughead pulled up in front of her house on his motorcycle. Even if she supported his need to figure out where he stood with the Serpents, she knew it would bring him undue problems if she flaunted it in front of her mother too much.

The walk home in the rain wasn’t terrible. Her mother was busy when she got home, and she went right upstairs to her room, where she lit her own bergamot-scented candle and lay down on her own bed and stared out her own window at the rain.

Then she thought about the last time she’d looked out this window, and found Jughead climbing up to it, and wondered what it would feel like to have him lying on top of her now, his head on her chest … his belly between her thighs.

Even thinking the last part made her blush. And yet, she found herself digging her phone out of her discarded purse and scrolling through her messages to find his name.

She read through their last messages, all sent long before the Jubilee, before working up the nerve to type out, _I’ve been thinking…_

She sent it, and though she began typing, several times, a message about how she was thinking about what he’d said at Pop’s, how his appetite supposedly increased _tenfold_ \-- she sucked in a breath, thinking about the sheer magnitude of such a number when it came to food -- she deleted every single one, and instead sent, _about how sweet you looked asleep this afternoon in the waiting room._

He’d seen the first one -- Jughead was a firm believer in the merit of read receipts, mostly so he could be petty about responding to texts -- but it took him a minute to start replying once he’d read the first one. And then -- _Thinking how?_

_In a good way,_ she sent back. _In a way that makes me hope I can see you sleep again._

_Sounds creepy_ , he said, and she could practically hear his laugh through the phone, that quiet sigh of a laugh.

_As creepy as sneaking in through your girlfriend’s window after her parents have gone to sleep?_

Again, there was a pause, before: _I’ll see you at 9:30._

She smiled to herself and then blew out the candle, stuffed her feet into her Wellies, and snuck out the back door, intent on hitting the grocery store before dark fell.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Stop & Shop was just down the street, and Betty had snuck in and out of there at least twice before, with Polly, last fall. She cut through the back of the parking lot, through a thatch of woods that separated it from the elementary school soccer fields, and entered the store through the left-most entrance.

She was in the cookie aisle like lightning. She didn't even think twice -- every time she'd come through here with her mother, it had lit up before her like a beacon of all the things she could never eat, all the things that would “make you fat.”

She realized, with a hard swallow, that the time for such things had come.

She took two packages of Double Stuf Oreos off the shelf, their bright blue and pink packaging shining buoyantly in her hand. And then she went down the dairy aisle, since, she thought, in the commercials they were always dunking the Oreos in milk. She didn't want to seem too much like she didn't know anything in front of Jughead.

At the register, she handed the familiar old woman cashier a ten, and then bolted before her change could be handed to her. If there was one thing Betty had learned in her months of sleuthing, it was never to stick around long.

And if there was another, it was that she'd not felt this much exhilaration at any point during her investigations.

She ran back to her house and, before she reached her block, did a quick lap around to calm her breathing. Her mother would be suspicious regardless, but she would definitely attract unwanted attention if she were panting.

The grocery bags were less of a concern. If Jughead could climb up the trellis to her window, she could do the same once she'd gotten past her mother.

She ditched the bags in the well-manicured rose bushes underneath her window, and sized up the climb. It was a wonder Jughead had ever gotten in and out without crushing those rose bushes, but then again, he seemed to be capable of some pretty incredible things.

Like gaining her trust so quickly. Like eroding pretty much all of her inhibitions about sounding pretentious, or too smart -- she could never beat Jughead at his own game like that, just like she could never be too smart for him.

She wondered, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth, if managing to hide all his gluttonous food habits was another thing he'd been so incredible at doing.

She’d just have to find out, she decided, as she went up the front steps and unlocked the door.

“Betty?” called her mother this time.

Betty smiled to herself, glad she hadn't fallen victim to the thought that her mother really wouldn't be around to harass her a second time.

“Hi, Mom,” she said. Alice Cooper had rounded the corner through the kitchen, which meant she'd probably been holed up in her office earlier. The door to it was on the other side of the kitchen.

“You're home late,” she said.

“Half the town is in the waiting room at the hospital right now,” Betty said. “Or, they were, until Fred Andrews woke up, and then I think most of us headed out.”

Her mother’s posture changed. “He did?”

Betty nodded. She wondered how long the milk would keep cool outside.

“Hmm,” her mother said. “I’m gonna go over there then, and see if there's anything I can do to help at their house,” she finished. “Lord knows Archie Andrews doesn't know how to keep a house clean.”

Betty rolled her eyes, but was secretly thrilled. She went upstairs as soon as her mother disappeared into the kitchen/office again, and texted Jughead.

_My mom’s heading back to the hospital soon_ , she wrote.

_Okay_ , Jughead replied. _Let me know when she's left and you're certain she hasn't left any cameras on for us._

Betty giggled, tossing her phone back on her bed. She peered out the window to the rose bushes, where her two bags sat decently well-hidden from the porch. She considered going down to get them now, but as soon as she opened the window, her mother emerged, purse and keys in hand.

Her eyes darted straight up to Betty’s room.

Betty waved, smiled. Her mother cocked one severe eyebrow, then got into their Honda and drove off.

Betty released the air she’d been holding in her lungs, and then grabbed her phone. _Mom’s gone_ , she texted Jughead.

_See you in twenty_ , he replied, and her heart leapt a little too quickly.

She went back downstairs and retrieved her grocery bags from the rose bushes, sticking the gallon of milk in the fridge as she went. There could be no evidence of this anywhere in the house when they were finished, so she brought the Oreos up in their plastic bag and tucked them in her desk drawer for the time being.

Then she cleaned up her bed. Organized the pillows and straightened her quilt. Then she put away the small pile of discarded sweaters she’d tried on this morning and then ripped off, disappointed. Then she rearranged everything on her desk/vanity set up, so the labels faced outwards and the bottles went in size-order, the biggest ones on the outsides.  
And then twenty minutes had passed and her palms were still sweating, but there wasn’t anything else to tidy up. But the window was opening, and her heartbeat was quickening, and then all six maddening feet of Jughead Jones were coming through her window.

She hadn’t even thought of a plan yet.

“You cleaned for me?” Jughead said as he shut the window behind him. “I’m touched.”

Betty smiled nervously. “It’s not like I’ve had much time to do anything in here lately.”

He crossed the room and taken her in his arms. He was smiling like he was still riding the wave of happiness that came with her telling him she’d support him through his ordeal with the Serpents, like he was regretting his decision to stay in Riverdale with her a little bit less. She liked the crinkle in his eye, but she liked the angle of his face more, the way he seemed so much less self-conscious here about the little roll of fat under his chin than he had … well, maybe anywhere else. She kissed him slowly as she tried to think of a way to broach the subject, and then decided that maybe kissing him while trying to think wasn’t the smartest idea.

“So, what’s the occasion?” he asked, when they pulled apart. “Mom’s not home so you invite your dirty Southside boyfriend over to trash the place?”

“You’re not _dirty_ ,” she laughed. “But maybe there are some other things that need ruining,” she added, tucking her hand beneath his jacket and trailing her finger down the length of his chest, over his red T-shirt. _Like your waistline_ , she thought before she could stop herself, and then she felt her face turn that horrible shade of red she knew that came when she’d really embarrassed herself.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, really?”

She could only manage a nod.

Jughead laughed that quiet laugh in the back of his throat, and then squeezed her tighter. She could swear she felt how soft he was through their shirts, and in that moment she wanted little else in the world more than to be able to see it for real.

“Should we get a snack then, first?” she asked, after a moment of feeling like she would never be able to breathe again from the fire of wanting that burned in her chest. “I went out and got a couple of things, if you want.”

“What kind of things?”

“You know,” she said. “The kind of things my mother doesn’t usually let me have the house.”

They had never talked about her mother’s strange food habits, but Betty was sure they were pretty obvious to the average person, who wasn’t embroiled in Alice Cooper’s rules and regulations about eating. Hell, Veronica had noticed, and she hadn’t ever set foot in Betty’s house before.

She was pretty sure Jughead had some idea of what she was talking about though, since he pouted his lip and looked to the ceiling, as if he were racking his brain for ideas, and then said, “I can only guess at such things, but I’m pretty sure I know what that means.”

She smiled at him, every inch of her alight with anticipation. “Be a dear and go downstairs for milk, then?” she asked.

He looked toward the door, and then back. If he was confused, he didn’t show it. “Are you sure no one’s home? I don’t want to get caught raiding your fridge.”

All her nerves lit up again. “No one’s here.” _No one’s here to catch you raiding my fridge except me_ , she kept herself from adding.

“Ooookay,” he said, swinging himself toward the door in a silly, dramatic fashion. “Be right back.”

He left her door open, and as soon as she heard him finish the stairs, she took the two packs of Oreos out of her desk drawer, and opened her laptop.

It was totally inconceivable that she could … tell him to eat in front of her, without anything else to do. That would be weird. But maybe, if she suggested they lie in bed, like she’d been thinking about earlier, and watched a movie, she could achieve the same goal without any of the weirdness.

Goal being -- she blushed again at the thought, and then a powerful tingling sensation took her over -- to get him to finish both packs of Oreos.

He’d mounted the stairs again. They couldn’t stay in the house, she’d said. He hadn’t seemed fazed. Maybe teenage boys didn’t think about food the same way she or any other girl her age thought about food. Hardly _anyone_ normal thought about food the way her mother did. But even still, it seemed weird to outright ask or expect that someone would eat two packages of Oreos without some level of hesitation.

“Oh,” he said, spotting the Oreos in her hand as soon as he entered the room. He closed the door behind him, a sly and somewhat loving look melting over his face. He set the milk and two glasses down on her desk, then picked up a package. “You got the good kind, too.”

“I did?” she replied, looking up at him.

“Uh, yeah, everyone knows that the original Oreos don’t have nearly enough creme filling to keep up with our modern appetites,” Jughead said, giving her a sarcastic look. She only smiled back at him.

He didn’t waste any time in ripping the package open and taking two cookies out, or pouring himself a glass of milk. Betty was glad for the computer screen to avert her eyes, which were _certainly_ widening with disbelief as she watched him. Did he know? He couldn’t know.

“Take your jacket off. And maybe your boots, too,” she said as she pat the pillows next to her. “It’s time to get cozy.”

He shucked his coat and left his heavy leather biker boots by the door. And he brought both packages, the milk, and the glasses over with him.

Maybe he did know.

He arranged both packages on his lap, open one stacked on top of the other, and put the glasses and the milk on the windowsill over which he’d just climbed. “What are you thinking of watching?” he asked as Netflix finally loaded on her screen.

“I was going to ask you, Mr. Classic Cinema.”

“Hmm,” he said. As he thought, he stuck his hand in the package and pulled another Oreo out. “Have you ever seen _Jaws_? Like, the original _Jaws_?” he asked around a mouthful of cookie.

“Is there a remake of _Jaws_?”

“Not sure if you’d count Sharknado,” he replied.

“Well, I never thought you would,” she laughed. “But no, I’ve never seen it.”

“Okay then,” he said, reaching over her to search it. His shoulder was practically in her face, but she could smell the rain on him, and the faint smell of his deodorant, and the ever-pervasive smell of his father’s alcohol and cigarettes that clung to him much like the chains of his father’s reputation. She wanted to bury her face in his T-shirt and breathe in that clumsy, slightly dangerous smell forever.

“There we go,” he said when he pulled it up. “Prepare to fear sharks viscerally and for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said.

“No, I’m serious,” he said, as the opening credits rolled silently on. “You know how everyone gets all up in arms about sharks on the beaches in the summer? Where do you think that gripping cultural fear came from?”

“An animatronic shark?” she asked.

“The _best_ and _most realistic_ animatronic shark in existence at the time,” he corrected. “The people who made the dinosaurs for _Jurassic Park_ studied the _Jaws_ shark when they were making all the special effects.” The music began, that familiar ominous string music, and Betty settled in beside Jughead a little bit more.

“I guess we’ll see,” she said.

Jughead stuck the sticky tab on the package seal to the back of the package, to keep it open, and then picked out three more Oreos. “I’m telling you,” he said, shoving one whole in his mouth, “If dinosaurs were still around like sharks were, we’d have a very similar problem with rampant fear there, too.”

“Well, of course we would, because dinosaurs live on land,” Betty said.

“Hush,” Jughead said, with a laugh that clearly acknowledged he hadn’t thought about that. “You’re gonna miss the dialogue.”

They were silent through the opening shark attack, and then through the police chief’s introduction. In those ten minutes, Jughead finished off a whole row of cookies.

Betty squirmed next to him. She suddenly felt unreasonably full of energy, like she had to run around the block to calm herself down. It only worsened when Jughead reached up for the glass of milk, and slugged half of it down, and Betty felt suddenly like there wasn’t enough air in the room.

They watched Amity Island descend into chaos, and Richard Dreyfuss’ character appear from the oceanographic institute. Betty only half-watched, really, because Jughead, caught in what appeared to be trance-like appreciation for this movie, had worked his way through another row and a half of Oreos.

“Wow,” Betty breathed, when he slid another one in his mouth.

“What?” he asked. “Nothing’s happened yet.”

“Two people have been murdered,” she said. _And I’m about to be the third._

“You haven’t seen anything yet, though,” he promised, and she wondered what exactly he was promising.

She bit her lip when he finished the row and, maybe in disappointment, maybe in embarrassment, he pulled his hand back and brushed his fingers off on his shirt, right over his belly.

His belly. She couldn’t see too much, still, but each time he dragged his fingers down the front of it, she saw a little something there, maybe the very faint outline of his belly button. If she thought about it. She’d know for sure if she just reached out --

“Are you watching?” he asked her. “Things are about to get real.”

“Uh, yeah, of course I am,” she said. “They’re going to take Quint up on his offer.”

  
Jughead nodded as he settled back a little more in her pillow fortress. “You bet they are.”

He pulled her closer into him, and she found herself snuggled in between him and the crook of his elbow. She was sure now that it wouldn’t be weird if she slid her hand across him and wrapped her arm around his waist, right?

But no, she couldn’t do that -- he was reaching for the second goddamn pack of Oreos.

“You said these had to be out of here, right?” Jughead said over the plastic wrenching of the packaging seal. “Before your mom got home?”

“Yep,” Betty squeaked. “She finds everything I try to hide.”

“Why would you try to hide these?” he asked.

“Because we’re not allowed that kind of food in the house.”

He gave her a look.

“Really. Mom always said …”

“Always said what?”

She met his gaze for the first time since they’d started the movie. “That it’d make you fat,” she finished, blinking at him in a way she hoped was both suggestive and totally innocent of any ulterior motives she might have had.

Jughead just scoffed. “We didn’t have much of that kind of talk in my house. Usually, it was ‘eat what you can find so you don’t die, and good luck.’” He offered her an Oreo. “You want to die, Betty Cooper?”

She smiled at him sarcastically and took the cookie from him. _Betty, 1, Jughead … so many more than just one_ , she thought to herself, as she split the cookie in half and licked the creme out of the center, like she’d heard so many people say to do.

They returned to the movie as Quint, Hooper, and the Chief set sail to kill the shark. As the tension rose, and the three of them deteriorated out at sea, Betty noticed Jughead’s hand straying to the cookie package more frequently, as if the stress of the movie really set him off. She reached up and poured him a third glass of milk when Quint smashed the radio, and she heard him snicker quietly to himself, again, perhaps a little embarrassed.

There was still a whole row of Oreos left when the shark ate Quint. And it was still there when Hooper resurfaced, and he and the Chief kicked their way back to Amity Island.

She wondered if he’d gotten too wrapped up in the film, or if maybe he’d finally tired out and was full.

And if he was full…

He didn’t move when the credits rolled, but she heard him take a deep breath when she leaned up to pause it, and when she turned back around to face him, she saw that as he breathed, he was pushing out his belly, stretching himself long and tall, and she felt her eyes nearly bug out of her head.

“You okay there, Juggy?” she asked. As he exhaled a mostly sweet cloud of Oreo-scented breath, she let herself reach out and run her hand across his belly, let it fall smoothly into a tender stroke as she leaned into him, head on his chest.

His eyes were closed when he finally said, “Well, I kind of can’t believe I single-handedly ate almost two packs of Double Stuf Oreos by myself.”

“I had one,” Betty said. Jughead opened his eyes skeptically at her, and she laughed. “You want some more milk, maybe? Wash it all down?”

He sighed, considering it. It was the most contented sound she’d ever heard Jughead make, and now that she’d heard it, she wanted to hear it again, and again, and again, as many times as she could before she died.

“Yeah, why not,” he said.

She poured him another glass of milk. “And, you know, the cookies have to be gone, too….”

She looked at him. He was staring at her with a suspicious, but playful kind of gaze, one of his eyebrows cocked, his lips slightly parted after raising the glass to them. “What are you up to here, Betty?”

  
“Nothing,” she said, but she could feel the blush rising on her cheeks, ratting her out. “They just have to be gone, and I don’t want any more.”

He wasn’t buying it, she could tell, but he reached for another Oreo anyway. “I know that,” he said, before shoving the whole thing in his mouth. “You’ve already said it.”

Another. And another. Could she tell him what she was really up to? Or did he see it in her eyes, how wildly attracted she was to him as he stuffed his mouth full of cookies, how fascinated she was by his total lack of restraint, his seemingly unrelenting desire to eat? When he ate a sixth cookie, she figured maybe he didn’t have any idea what he was doing to her, exactly -- just that it was doing _something_ to her. And he always seemed to be wanting to do _something_ to her.

But by the final cookie, it seemed that desire had been crushed under the weight of all the other Oreos he’d eaten, and she saw a kind of sleepiness take him over. His eyelids drooped, and his breathing slowed. She had been sitting across from him this whole time, as he ate gluttonously, as if responding to a challenge she’d given him, like a king swollen with power. But the Oreos seemed to have gotten the best of him.

She wasn’t going to let the last one escape him, though.

“Come on,” she said, putting her hand tentatively on his belly again. Every inch of him seemed to respond to her touch, like he’d been waiting without realizing for her to press her hand on the soft spot above his belt. He arched his back a little, as if to push himself further into her hands, and she pushed back, taking him in both hands this time. “It’s the last one, you can do it.”

He held her gaze, brows furrowed over his pretty blue eyes, and she removed her hand from his belly to seize the Oreo from him and coax him into eating it.

She felt alive, holding that Oreo above his lips, holding his gaze as he chewed. This was so weird, but it was so _good_ , and if she was right in her gauge, Jughead thought so too. She ran her free hand up and down the length of his torso, and the motion seemed to conduct the swell of his breathing. She shoved the second half he hadn’t finished into his mouth, and then put both hands on his belly, reveling in the way that his body convulsed with pleasure every time she did.

“What are you doing to me?” he asked her once he’d finished. He reached for the glass of milk and heaved himself to a sitting position. When he’d drunk the glass, he pulled her onto his lap, and she took his face in her hands.

“I’m not doing anything,” she said.

“You asked me to eat two whole packages of Oreos, Betty,” he said, but there wasn’t any malice in his voice. No edge. Just curiosity. “Why?”

She took a deep breath, feeling that blush color her cheeks and her chest and probably the insides of her stomach as well. “Because,” she began. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you said at Pop’s this morning. Or what you said at the hospital.”

“What?”

“That you eat when you’re … stressed,” she said. “It’s beginning to show, Jug.”

He looked down at himself, and then looked at her, a little horrified, but not at her. “Are you sure?”

She put her hand back on his belly, and, taking a breath, grabbed all the fat that was there, enough to massage between her fingers gently, enough to pooch out over his jeans the way he was sitting. “I’m very sure.”

He considered this for a second, not looking at her. She kept her hand on his belly, releasing the roll but still smoothing his shirt over it, idly. “There is kind of a lot more food at Archie’s than I’m used to having around.”

She smirked, pleased with herself for having guessed that in the first place.

“What do you think?” he asked. “I mean, you don’t seem to mind.”

“Mind?” she asked, and then she put her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down into the pillows. With a careful hand, and holding his gaze all the while, Betty pushed his shirt up a little bit, scooted back, and pressed a kiss right underneath his belly button, where he seemed to be roundest, stretched the tightest. “I definitely do not mind, Jughead Jones.”

The smile that bloomed on his face was soft and sparkly, like a comet shooting across a night sky, and when she leaned up to kiss him, he pulled her down next to him and positioned her hand right back where it had been, this time on the bare skin of his belly.


End file.
